


give me the universe (take me home)

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Leaving Home, M/M, Mentions of Taylor Swift, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 22:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18508657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: “We’re leaving,” Tony Stark says, one night when Peter is asleep between them on the expensive couch. The penthouse is empty above a city that feels empty, even now that the Restoration is over, and everyone is back.Not everyone, he thinks. Not Steve.





	give me the universe (take me home)

He’s tired.

He’s been tired for so long, it aches in his bones, and makes his fingers--metal and flesh both--tremble. 

He’s  _ tired. _

He thinks--more than he should--about the blessed quiet of that  _ other _  place, where he could rest. It was like Wakanda, and not, and he misses it. 

Misses both. He misses a place to call home.

~*~ 

Peter comes by, every day. With food and beer, with quiet eyes and warm hands and a body to spar with when the demons rear too high, and a shoulder to lean on when he trembles from nightmares, and a safe circle of arms that holds him when he weeps for Steve. 

Peter isn’t his. 

Won’t ever be his. He comes wearing Tony’s clothes, smelling of the other man’s bed, and Bucky  _ knows _ what he offers. 

It doesn’t stop him from wanting more. 

~*~ 

“We’re leaving,” Tony Stark says, one night when Peter is asleep between them on the expensive couch. The penthouse is empty above a city that feels empty, even now that the Restoration is over, and everyone is back. 

Not everyone, he thinks. Not Steve. Not May. Not Nat and Clint and so many others. 

“I can’t--everyone wants something from me. And I can’t be that person anymore.” 

“Ironman?” he asks, curious and Tony nods, his expression tight. 

“I can’t stay here. And he doesn’t want to.” 

Bucky looks at him, sleeping sweet and peaceful, one hand tangled in Tony’s shirt, head tipped onto Bucky’s thigh. 

His heart aches, missing him, missing this, already. 

“Where will you go?” he asks, and Tony shrugs. 

“Wherever we want.” 

He’s quiet, and then--”Come with us.” 

~*~ 

They argue about it. 

Peter begs, pleads. Shout and curses when that doesn’t get him what he wants. Goes silent, furious and hurt, when the shouting doesn’t work. 

Tony doesn’t say much, not while he works to outfit their ship, not while he stocks it, not until two nights before they leave. 

Then he shows up in Bucky’s tiny, dirty apartment. 

“Why won’t you come? Why stay?” 

“You don’t want me,” he says, and Tony snorts. 

“Why? Because you’re in love with Pete?” 

Bucky stills.

“Or because your in love with a dead man.” 

He snarls, and Tony nods, short. “Look, man, I get it. But there’s nothing here for you.” 

“There’s nothing for me there, either.” 

“There’s Peter,” he says. “And me.” 

It’s not enough. 

But it’s all he has. 

Tony sighs. “Look, you can pine and write shitty poetry all you want--but get your emo ass on the ship first.” 

He doesn’t answer--but he doesn’t need to. 

~*~ 

Peter’s smile, when Bucky walks onto the Ironheart, is as bright as the stars. 

Tony’s smile is smaller, but pleased. 

~*~ 

As they leave the atmosphere, Peter’s hand finds his, and he squeezes, watching Earth fall away, blue and brilliant and beautiful and broken. 

He takes a breath of recycled air and blinks at the black, star-studded expanse before him, and Peter says, “Where to?” 

“Anywhere,” Tony says. He pulls up a holographic display and sends it spinning through the cockpit of the Ironheart, and Bucky shivers, watching the galaxy twist around them. A small planet gleams red and bright. He touches it. 

“Here,” he says. 

Tony sets their course. 

~*~ 

They go to the little red planet, and then to a green one. A blue world of water and a silvery planet of ice and a golden planet of fire that Tony refused to touch down on. They go to so many worlds, Bucky loses track of them. 

He writes his shitty poetry and throws books at Tony’s head when he pipes Taylor Swift through the ship and he doesn’t smile, really--but he doesn’t feel as  _ heavy _ as he used to. 

~*~ 

Some nights, he lays awake in his little room and listens. 

They aren’t loud, often, but sometimes--sometimes he can hear them, the rough gritty gravel of Tony’s voice and the high whine of Peter’s pleasure, and he strokes himself slow and steady, listening to them fuck. 

He knows they know. Peter smiles at him, soft and secret, when he catches Bucky watching him, and Tony nudges him sometimes, nods at Peter bent over the nav display, ass tight and pretty in his pants. 

He wonders if Tony realizes--he’s looking at them both. 

~*~ 

He still dreams of ash and blood, of icy water and Steve’s blue eyes. 

He still dreams of Brooklyn, not the way he saw it last, shattered by the Decimation--but as he saw it first, as he loved it, when he ran the streets with Steve. 

He still dreams of home--but he wakes and pulls Peter into a loose embrace, accepts the weight of coffee-deprived Tony leaning into his chest, and realizes--that isn’t the  _ other _ or Wakanda or even Steve anymore. 

~*~ 

The planet is a small golden and green orb. 

There are no humanoid lifesigns, and Bucky listens as Tony runs scans, and FRIDAY reports back. 

It’s home to small wildlife--but the planet is almost deserted. 

It’s peaceful. Wide open plains of golden plants that twist around his legs as they leave the Ironheart, pink toned mountains climbing in the distance. A green forest beckons. It’s the tenth or twentieth or two-hundredth planet. 

He doesn’t know, doesn’t care, only knows this--the awe on Peter’s face when they go somewhere humans have never been. 

The lines that are softer now, and smiling, around Tony’s eyes. 

“This could be home,” he says, and they smile at him. 

~*~ 

Tony builds them a house. 

For a few days, Bucky insists on a second one, a separate one--they want, need,  _ deserve _ their privacy after the months pressed tight on the Ironheart. 

Tony rolls his eyes and ignores him and Peter looks almost sad and that silences him, and he helps, as much as Tony will let him, as much as the bots will. 

Tony builds them a house. 

But it only feels like a home, he thinks, because of who he’s with. 

~*~ 

“Do you miss it?” he asks, watching Peter swinging through the trees. Tony shrugs. Shakes his head. 

“What I got for giving up Ironman--it’s worth it. It’s not even a choice.” 

“Peter,” he says, nodding, because of course. It isn’t. Peter is worth everything. Anything.

Tony looks at him, and his expression is soft and exasperated and affectionate. “Not just Peter, Bucky babe.” 

He makes a noise, low and almost hurt, and Tony smiles. “When you’re ready,” he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of Bucky’s lips. “We’re waiting.” 

~*~ 

He dreams of Steve and dying, of Hydra and ice, and he wakes, and doesn’t ache for what is gone, gone,  _ gone.  _ He wakes, and he wants--and he thinks of Tony’s words all those weeks ago, and the touches that are soft and inviting and never demanding. 

He thinks--this is home. It’s not Wakanda or Brooklyn, or  _ other.  _

It’s better.

He slips out of his bed and pads across the hall in the house that Tony built them, and slips into their bed, and Peter--Peter blinks up at him, sleepily and smiles, sweet, and curls into his chest, as Tony wraps around his back. 

~*~ 

He isn’t tired, anymore. 

Sometimes, he is exhausted, but Peter grins at him, sticky and stated and come drunk and he doesn’t mind. 

Sometimes he is sore, his body aching, and he presses against the bruises Tony leaves, and savors the ache and the wet warmth that is proof of their love. 

Sometimes he dreams. He dreams of home, of a spaceship with a sassy AI and Taylor Swift echoing in the halls, and a holographic display of the universe reflecting on their faces, and no matter where they go, what worlds they explore--Bucky is home. 


End file.
